Painting Dissent: The American Pre-Raphaelite Experiment

Interesting online lecture from the Courtauld Research Forum on the American Pre-Raphaelites.

Sophie Lynford from Harvard Art Museum explained how the American Pre-Raphaelite movement developed, how it was influence by the British group and how it promoted the Abolition of slavery.

She took two pictures by Thomas Charles Ferrer, who had been born in England, to describe the ideas of the movement and how they challenged the American sublime landscape artists. She started with “Gone, Gone” from 1860, shown here, which was on display in New York as the Civil War broke out and them looked at “View of Northampton from the Dome of the Hospital” from 1863, which was a direct response to Thomas Cole’s earlier painting of the nearby Ox Bow Lake.

I am not sure I would have worked out the abolitionist links from the paintings but Lynford said this came though more in their writings.

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